Hire more paramedics, service CentrePort lands, Winnipeg mayoral candidates say

A Winnipeg mayoral candidate says the city needs to hire more paramedics and put more ambulances on the road to reduce wait times. 

"There are far too many people in the city of Winnipeg who have faced the difficult choice of whether to go to the hospital on their own or wait for the ambulance that sometimes takes hours to get there," Robert-Falcon Ouellette said at a Tuesday news conference outside a fire-paramedic station on Ellen Street, in central Winnipeg.

In June, fire-paramedic Chief Christian Schmidt said response times have crept up to an average of almost 15 minutes. Although the service was able to send a first responder within its nine-minute target, the response time for ambulances capable of transporting patients to hospital was getting longer, he said.

Ouellette said the long wait times put Winnipeggers at risk, and the city needs three or four more paramedic teams.

The city and the province need to sign a new long-term funding agreement in order to do that, he said. The last one expired in 2017. 

A March report to city council's finance committee said Manitoba Shared Health and the city had reached a tentative deal, which was expected to be finalized by the end of that month.

On Tuesday, however, a Shared Health spokesperson said talks were still ongoing.

Ouellette also called for a review to examine whether firefighter and paramedic services should be separated.

Since they were amalgamated in 2000, conflicts between the two services have periodically flared. In recent years, the unions representing both paramedics and firefighters have said the two would work better if they were run as separate entities. 

"We have attempted to do this for a number of years — bringing its two very different cultures together — and it hasn't quite worked," said Ouellette.

"I think it would be very important now to consider actually separating them and making sure that the paramedic services have the full support of the city and the province."

Ouellette also called for more paramedics to be assigned to the Emergency Paramedics in the Community (EPIC) program, which sends paramedics to the homes of low-acuity patients in order to lessen the load on emergency departments. 

The president of the union that represents paramedics said funding for ambulances hasn't kept pace with demand, and welcomed the call for the expansion of the EPIC program.

The Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union has been warning the city and the Winnipeg Fire-Paramedic Service for years about the need to "properly resource the paramedic side of the WFPS," president Kyle Ross said in an emailed statement.

"Lives literally depend on it."

Service CentrePort South: Motkaluk

Another mayoral candidate's top infrastructure priority would be extending city services to the area near the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport known as CentrePort South. 

The City of Winnipeg is missing out on tens of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs by not investing in the industrial area, said Jenny Motkaluk.

"Building infrastructure that supports economic growth is key to my plan for Winnipeg," she said at a news conference at Optimist Park, overlooking CentrePort.

"The inexcusable delays have cost the City of Winnipeg hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 12 years, and every year of delay is just simply too costly for us."

Developing CentrePort would bring the city $80 million a year in tax revenue and create 16,000 new jobs, she said.

It would also include 10,000 new homes.

City officials said in an update to council's finance committee on Monday they are waiting on approval of federal funding to complete regional sewer and water services in Phase 1A of the Airport Area West lands, within CentrePort South.

In March, the Manitoba government conditionally approved a $20-million grant for Airport Area West, subject to additional plan information and a review of all legal and regulatory requirements.

Reduce police workload by 10%: Loney

Another mayoral candidate said Tuesday the City of Winnipeg needs to take a different approach to crime.

Shaun Loney said the proposals that he has made over the course of his campaign would reduce police workload by 10 per cent.

He has called for the city to use social enterprises — businesses that create some kind of public benefit — to reduce recidivism among offenders who take up a large amount of police resources.

"The people who are committing crimes in the city are doing so over and over and over again, and will continue to do so until they have access to the interventions that we all know work well," he said during a news conference at a computer appliance store on Pembina Highway that was recently hit by theft.

Winnipeg police should release statistics on how much time they spend responding to repeat offenders, similar to cities like Saskatoon, he said.

Loney co-founded BUILD, an organization that helps find employment for people who have trouble getting work because of their criminal past, and which he said has helped people leave criminal life.

People also need to be supported with mental health services, addictions treatment, housing and jobs, he said.

• Read more from CBC on the 2022 Winnipeg election

Loney, Motkaluk and Ouellette are among 15 people running for mayor. The others are Idris Adelakun, Rana Bokhari, Chris Clacio, Vincent Gabriele, Scott Gillingham, Kevin Klein, Glen Murray, Jessica Peebles, Rick Shone, Govind Thawani, Desmond Thomas and Don Woodstock.

Election day is Oct. 26.